DOJ: Yale School of Medicine favors Black, Hispanic applicants
by Darryl Coote · UPIMay 15 (UPI) -- Yale University's medical school admissions process discriminates against White and Asian applicants in favor of Black and Hispanic applicants, the Justice Department said, the latest action in the Trump administration's effort to root out diversity, equity and inclusion from both public and private institutions.
The Justice Department has launched a handful of investigations into admissions and hiring practices at some of the nation's leading schools as part of President Donald Trump's crackdown on DEI, a broad term generally referring to programs and policies that foster participation by people from different backgrounds.
DEI has been a target of conservatives for the last few years on accusations that such programs discriminate based on race and undermine merit-based systems, while proponents say they make those systems genuinely more merit-based by widening access and reducing barriers for historically excluded groups.
Trump directed the attorney general via an executive order on his first day in office to issue guidance to federally funded educational institutions on how to comply with the Supreme Court's 2023 ruling that restricted race-conscious admissions practices at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina.
The Justice Department said Thursday that it had completed its yearlong investigation into the Yale School of Medicine, finding that it had discriminated on the basis of race in the years since the high court's ruling and continues to do so.
"Yale's internal policies, publicly distributed literature and email correspondence of its leadership, consistently and emphatically demonstrate Yale's intent to use race in admissions decisions despite the Harvard ruling," Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said in a letter to the school.
"Based on its review of Yale's documents and data, the department believes that this discrimination is ongoing."
The Justice Department said Yale's continued distribution to admissions personnel of a holistic-review procedure that considers race and national origin demonstrated the school's "intent to discriminate in admissions, both before and after Harvard."
The letter was sent to Yale a little more than a week after the medical school at the University of California, Los Angeles, received a DOJ letter of its own citing similar findings.
As with the letter to UCLA, the one sent to Yale includes race-based applicant data showing admitted Black and Hispanic applicants had lower GPAs and MCAT scores than admitted White and Asian applicants, though the figures do not account for the full range of factors admissions takes into account.
"The applicant-level data produced by Yale indicate that a Black or Hispanic student has a substantially higher likelihood of being offered admission than a White or Asian student with the same academic credentials," Dhillon wrote in the letter.
"Yale's use of race resulted in a Black applicant being as much as 29 times higher odds of getting an interview for admission than an equally strong Asian applicant with similar academic credentials."
The Justice Department told Yale that it is seeking to enter a resolution agreement with the university to ensure it no longer uses race in admissions decisions.
Yale spokesperson Karen Peart told CT Insider the school will review the Justice Department's letter, but it is "confident in the rigorous admissions process we follow."
"The students admitted to Yale School of Medicine demonstrate exceptional academic achievement and personal commitment; its program of medical education encourages curiosity and critical thinking, and its graduates go on to become leaders in clinical care, research and public service," Peart said.
This is not the first time the Trump administration has targeted Yale over its admissions policy.
In 2020, during the first Trump administration, the Justice Department sued Yale, accusing it of discrimination against White and Asian undergraduate applicants.
The Justice Department dropped the case in early February, a few weeks after Joe Biden was inaugurated.
According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, Yale School of Medicine had 175 White students, 157 Asian students, 44 Black students and 26 Hispanic students in the 2023-2024 school year.
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Vice President JD Vance speaks during a news conference on anti-fraud initiatives in the Indian Treaty Room of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building at the White House on Wednesday. Photo by Daniel Heuer/UPI | License Photo